


Dissolve Me

by WordWarriors



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Grantaire has a big port wine stain on his back, Kind of angsty, M/M, Other, basically how r deals with it, it goes up his neck and out of his sleeves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 00:24:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1667945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WordWarriors/pseuds/WordWarriors
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>R was born with his skin trying to eat him alive, a birthmark spilled like a bottle of liquor down his back. He hides it, keeping the mistake under long sleeves and high collars, holding onto the one thing that's driven everyone away.</p><p>Except him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 20 Minutes

**Author's Note:**

> Basically a port wine stain is like a birthmark that's reddish in color, and can often look like bruises or inflamed skin, usually on the face. R's port wine stain is on his back but it goes up his neck a little and covers his shoulders as well. Port wine stains can result in physical inflammations and stuff, but for the purpose of this fic it's harmless

     When he was born his mother cried.

     They were tears of regret, of fear, of _how the hell could I have done that to my son_ and tears when the father storms out, a reluctant participant in the beginning, but "No way am I the father of that freak, you lying bitch." Screams of anger thrown at his back as he leaves, screams of how her son will be better than his father will ever be. She clutches her bruised son to her, stroking his curls that remind her of her mother and whispers to him about all the things he will do that his father never will.

     She never sees the man again, so she never really knows if she was right.

 

     (She is.)

 

    She gets sent clothes from relatives, little onesies that cover everything from his fingers to his toes, meant to cover the birthmark that looks like it's eating him alive. She sells them, and with the money buys toys with mirrors and reflections showing him that he is beautiful, and he can be happy, and that no one should tell him what to keep covered and what to show, and why should they, when all of him is beautiful?

     She hugs him and tickles him, touching him constantly, showing through physical contact how much she loves and cares for him, a silent promise to keep him happy and safe

     (She does her best)

     (Sometimes that isn't enough)

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments make a tired student motivated


	2. 7 Years

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kids are brats

It sticks up out of his shirt collar, and he's four so he doesn't know better, he just wanted to wear his sailor moon shirt, he liked her, and mommy always told him to not be ashamed of who he is, so why not show other kids?

Then that punk fifth grader with a tooth missing and a permanent runny nose grabbed him by the back of his collar, shouting to the rest of the world "Hey look at this loser! Why're you wearing a girls shirt, are you a _girl_?" His laughter sounded like screeches, and he tried to run, choking himself on his new shirt, stretching and warping his collar until- "What's on your back, freak? What's wrong with you?" The fifth grader with the faucet nose shoved him into the mulch and pulled back, ripping the shirt apart and calling over everyone to see the freak with the thing on his back

He had to borrow a shirt from the lost and found and got splinters in his mouth, but the fifth grader got blood on his shirt and a black eye.

His mother would later tell him, while wiping his tears and sewing the shirt back together ("I don't want a new one I want this one!") that it takes a certain type of insecure to bully those 3 years younger than you.

He was homeschooled after that.

 

\----

HUGE thanks to [Rayne](http://incompleteicarus.tumblr.com/) for editing and swapping headcanons and the amazing summary

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments make this stressed out writer very very happy


	3. 17 Years

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> R fencing brings out the best in me

He met his first crush at fencing lessons

(the outfit meant no skin showing, which was a plus).

He was the kind to talk trash while fencing, and he made sure to push you as far back into the piste as you were willing to be pushed so you could hear him. Luckily for R, he knew how to push back. Their first spar lasted for almost a full minute, constant offensive and defensive moves.

 

He's the same way in bed, teenage fingers roaming over teenage ribcages, mapping out more territory with each second, invading Grantaire's space in the best sort of way, letting his fingers do the seeing, so his eyes won't have to. He's grinning and laughing, and telling him how great he is, how much fun he has when they're together, how R bring out the best in him, and Grantaire thinks it might work this way. They swap kisses and gasps and R gets excited and happy and- "Shit! Shit fucking- what the hell is that?!" And he's gone to the other side of the bed, a retreat from the territory gained, leaving a no man's land riddled with accusing stares and shame.

It's silent for a while, another solid minute, almost the same as the minute they first spent on the piste, hearts pounding and pulses racing, and R gives him one minute, sixty seconds to change his mind, to pull him back, to tell him what he has been _aching_ to hear since he sat down in front of a mirror with no shirt on, waiting for the touch that never comes.

"I'll go" He says, sixty seconds later. He pulls his sweatshirt back on, grabs the sports bag he never thought would rest on the floor for that long, anyway.

He tells his mom fencing isn't really working out for him, maybe he'll try something else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments give a B student motivation


	4. 20 Years

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't romanticize pain

The next 'encounter' he meets is in a gallery (irony in it's greatest form, he would find later). Grantaire's mostly there to get out of the rain, but xe, as he finds out, was there to find a muse. R was only too happy (and surprised, if he was totally honest) to be xyr source of inspiration for both poetry and paintings. He learned how to laugh from xem, how to find small gifts in bigger problems, the right way to mix tequila at a party, and the way xe liked to use charcoal or arylic, how xe preferred _anything_ over watercolor. (Xe said watercolor dried too fast, and there was no control, too much detail left to chance.)

Xe draws him a lot, short studies in hurried pencil and hour long figure drawings in charcoal, with xyr leaving charcoal dust bruises from loving him after, and xe kisses him and xe tastes like the salt that's in sweat, and for the first time in a long time, he feels really,  _really_ happy. He feels accepted and loved, and he loves xem for it.

 

The first time he does an anatomy study for xem, and takes his shirt off, xe immediately gravitated toward it, gently scratching xyr fingernails over the damn thing, as if xe could have a piece of it, a part of the pain and the hurt and betrayal that comes with an affliction like this. He doesn't explain it, he shouldn't have to, it's his and his alone, xe has no part in it.

"It looks like an ocean." Xe breathes, awe and wonder in xyr voice, like it's something beautiful when it really, really isn't.

"It looks like what it is- an accident." He tells xem. He's gone the next day, and he leaves all of his early drafts, shitty sketches next to old t shirts he didn't like that much, anyway.

Xe paints him after. Paints his back like it's some trophy, like it has some deep meaningful message when it's really just a stupid birthmark, some capillaries in his skin that fucked up, just like the rest of him. Xe ends up getting some contract and the picture of his stupid back earns xem thousands.

He's too proud (ashamed) to ask for any of it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments make the tense author write faster

**Author's Note:**

> named after the alt j song because i like alt j and this song title made more sense than any other ones on the album
> 
> i have more chapters written out on my computer im just spacing them out i should post a new chap every day that should be right just dont hold me to it


End file.
